History

We had a Mother’s Day celebration today with my parents and sister and one of her kids.

In typical fashion, my parents decided to have the gathering at Windows on Minnesota, which sits at the top of the IDS building downtown. Their thinking was that the kids would get a kick out of the view–it was mostly a celebration for my mom (sure, part of it was for Julie and Jenni as well), but underneath it all was doing something the kids would enjoy.

Once a mom, always a mom, right?

This all happened the same weekend that I was told by Patrick that I’m becoming much like my mother–as we were driving through St. Paul coming home from dinner on Friday night. As I realize now, when we were kids, mom and dad would tell us things about places we were driving past: things that were part of their past, their history. As a kid, I didn’t really care, as most kids don’t care about anything involving their parents. It’s that child’s perspective: that nothing really happened outside of their universe or before they were born.

But here I am, as the grown up–the parent–with the years of history and experience, boring my own children. Part of me hopes that things have always been this way, even back to caveman days, as Thog took his sons Akk and Bog out hunting and told them long-winded stories of the hunting grounds he went to with his father. And of course, all the kids could do was roll their eyes, grunt an acknowledgement at the appropriate places, and wonder why their mother made them wear the itchy pelts today.

So on Mother’s Day weekend, I’ll take it as a compliment that I was told by Patrick that I’m becoming more and more like my mother. This, even though he didn’t mean it that way, must be high praise, because I have also been instilled with that gift of weaving deep meaningful stories about my ancestors or my own history.

We drove past my college, then a few blocks more past our old basement apartment on Grand Avenue, and then up to the police blockade preventing us from going past the apartment fire…Oh, wait…

Yeah, there was a fire, and that quickly got us off of the history jag for the time being.

There weren’t too many stories today, at least none really past the history Jenni and I had at that very location: where almost 19 years ago, after proposing to Jenni in our apartment, we had a fantastic dinner to celebrate her 21st birthday. Oddly, I could even pick out the spot where our table sat, simply by the corners of the building and the view we’d had.

The kids, as usual were unimpressed: again, that all happened at least four years prior to their appearance, so why care? All that mattered for the time being was that they were there with their cousin, aunt, parents and grandparents, and they had a great view of the metro area–a view that you don’t get to see very often.

Some day, probably not for another 15 or 20 years, memories like today will come streaming back, and they’ll feel compelled to share them, because that’s what parents do with their kids.

You just have to wonder if the memories will involve the view, standing by the window, the wonderful food, or the people or conversation. Or how they’ll their kids the story.